The ethical dilemmas that would exist with the introduction of technology such as telehealth are many. Dilemmas such as the knowledge of technology, the patient-doctor relationship, the security measures that must be taken when using the telehealth to access patient information and the security one needs to take with dealing with patient information, along with informed consent and data confidentiality (Langarizadeh, M., Moghbeli, F., & Aliabadi, A., 2017). These are all concerns and could be dilemmas that can exist when using telehealth technology.

For example, the primary care physician would want to ensure they are taking the protocols to keep their patients information confidential, along with making sure the patient is tech savvy to be able to understand the data and properly using the technology if not then this would not be the best patient care for the patient.

I personally do not feel that technology would replace human practitioners, but actually enhance them. I feel that the technology would make the practitioners job much easier . There will always be a need for human practitioners because although technology can constantly be enhanced it can only do the job that it was created to do. It is unable to take other measures into consideration to be able to know if something needs to be altered, or have a second look. For example, when my son has his TB test done they always come back positive. However, it’s actually a false positive and due to his doctor knowing this he always provides him with a chest x-ray that reflects a negative result. So therefore, we still need human practitioners to be able to decipher certain situations that machines or technology will never be able to do.

Reference

Langarizadeh, M., Moghbeli, F., & Aliabadi, A. (2017). Application of Ethics for Providing Telemedicine Services and Information Technology. Medical archives (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina), 71(5), 351355. https://doi.org/10.5455/medarh.2017.71.351-355